Addiction, Denial and How the Past Never Goes Away

Identifying details and names are not included but the content is factual.

Early Therapy, Post Disclosure

“What don’t you understand?”addiction specialist therapist asks.

“He’s smart,” I say, “And self aware.”

“Smart people get diseases,” she says and I think I’m going to throw pillows at her if she tries to tell me that addiction is like diabetes or some other chronic disease.

“I know smart people get diseases,” I say but what I really want to say is, “Smart people shouldn’t get addictions. Not as adults.” I know in theory this isn’t true. But I don’t live in theory; I live in my house and in my head. My head is saying, “He’s an idiot and so am I.” My head is wondering how he was so stupid not to get more help earlier and quicker and how I was so stupid not to know how he was spending his time and energy.

I had asked once before how I could not know. “You can’t spend a lot of time there,” the therapist said. “You were trusting and didn’t know then you didn’t have a reason not to trust. Plus, you were going about your business living a life.”

I am not sure I buy this. I know I have no interested become a super sleuth and cross-examining all loved ones in my life. I am not going to start monitoring phones or computers and carrying a portable lie detector though I do wonder if there is such a thing and how much it costs.  I don’t want to become the type of person who is second-guessing loved ones, trying to catch them in lies, and needing to corroborate their stories. I don’t like watching crime shows and have no desire to become an unpaid detective.

 And yet, I am the woman who has said, repeatedly, about my mother’s lack of knowledge of what took place in her home and under her roof, “It takes effort to be that oblivious” I am the woman who has raged at her ignorance. While my mother was unattuned to her children, which is quite different to me than accepting the lies of a trusted loved one who is a peer and an adult,  I can’t help but here my own mocking voice, directed at myself. It takes effort to be that oblivious.

 And if I am not stupid, was I manipulated, outsmarted and preyed upon so well by someone I adore? Each answer brings on a different flavor nausea but each keeps my belly unsettled.

 “You don’t understand,” I tell this woman. “This is a man who said parents lose the right to have problems when they become parents, who knows childhood trauma and saw me though my own healing. This is a man who has strong opinions, doesn’t respect immature adults.”

 “It’s astonishing, isn’t it?” she says, as though beholding a spectacular sunset.

 “No. Yes. It’s unbelievable.” And by unbelievable I mean I don’t believe it’s just a disease. I see it as a personal flaw and failing, in him, me and our marriage.

 “I’m just gonna say it,” I tell her, “Denial sounds a lot like a big fat excuse. He’s not stupid.”

 “Smart people get diseases,” she said. “Addiction is a disease.”

 “But he’s s smart man, self aware even about these issues and that’s the part that I don’t understand.”

 And as I don’t understand it I am living a new reality. When he calls and says he has something ot tell me I lean against the kitchen counter, half holding it with one hand. I’m waiting for him to say, “I was with that alleged killer on t.v.” or “I’m also a serial killer,” or, “I’m going to lose my job because my name came out when the cops did a sting,” or something more terrible that I am not yet capable of imagining.

 I wonder if I am indeed, capable of loving a monster. The fiancé of the Craig’s list killer is standing by her mate because she doesn’t believe the man she knows is capable of being this other person. My husband isn’t a killer, but he is capable of spearing my heart, and I am capable of loving that man. But, can I live with him?  Will, when the shock wears off, and as the healing continues, reality gets easier or more difficult and it’s not question I can answer.

 “I just don’t get how someone who seemed so kind could be so cruel and lie to my face,” I say to said therapist.

“And what part of the disease of addiction would that be?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” I say. I want to be spoon fed and not challenged. I really don’t understand addiction.

“Denial,” she says, as though she never saw Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live say, “Denial ain’t just the river in Egypt.” I repress the urge to start a stand-up routine and tell her all about Saturday Night Live.

“Denial is about compartmentalizing,” she explains. “It starts with rationalizing, justifying, and then intellectualizing. For some it’ about .projection which is common. With drunks, for example, they might say to a family member, “You’d drink too if you had to live with you. It sounds like he projected onto others instead of in the house. That’s part of denial.”

 “But he knows about trauma. He knows about the brain. He reads about religion. He knows about right and wrong,” I explain.

“You like projects, right? I want you to read up on denial and do some research on that part of addiction.”

“What do you think I’m in denial about denial? I say. “I get denial but I don’t get his denial.”

I don’t want to learn about addiction or denial in general. I want to know what happened to the man I loved, the marriage I thought I wa in, the person I considered my best friend. I don’t want to be part of a new secret society of people who love addicts or who are enablers or who are somehow part of this family disease cycle. I want to stomp on the rug under my feet, nailing it in as fast as I can before everything and everyone I have ever loved feels like it’s about to no longer be held by gravity. I feel love itself is falling away from me and it’s invisible and I can’t catch it. My life, the years are balloons blown through a wand, a clear rainbow tinted film floating up and then popping leaving on the tiniest bit of moisture as evidence of existence. 

“You aren’t going to know if you can trust him again except with time,” she says. “You have to see what happens in 3 or 6 months, how his recovery goes and how you feel over time. Some of this is going to unfold and the answers will come in time. That’s part of your recovery. No matter how much you read you aren’t going to know how he’s going to change and how you’re going to feel.”

 “I hate that,” I say, “I want assurances and guarantees.”

 “You have choices,” she says, “Even now. You can decide to read a few pages of a book or the entire book in a night. You can choose but realize, if you stay up all night to read you are going to be more tired than if you don’t you are going to be more tired.”

 So it’s my fault I’m exhausted I think. I’m enraged and I’m relieved. What I have known for at least five years is I can’t wait  until things are different to take care of myself and this knowledge has sat with me like an unused brownie mix waiting to be cooked, collecting dust for some special mother-daughter moment when my daughter wants to cook. I store it and hold it for a later more poignant time rather than realizing we could bake daily or weekly, keep more than one box on the shelf and not live so close to the bone. That’s the way of living I’ve not changed though I’ve seen it needs changing for a long time now.

 “I have my own work to do and I hate uncertainty and I really have no idea how things are going to turn out,”" I say. “I mean I know no one does but I now know it and it sucks. That’s why I’m reading Pema Chodron’s The Wisdom of No Escape. It’s the only book that comforts.”

 “What about it is comforting?” she asks.

 “Well, it’s about how we are all pain averse and that’s a trap because we all have pain. We all think our own pain is a personal failing instead of part of the human condition. That’s comforting right now to realize I’m just a person in pain and human rather to feel I’m in a crisis in my marriage and a totally betrayed spouse. I mean I’m those things as well but if I feel only those things I despair and if I think of them as part of learning to live a fuller life it’s more comforting. Basically, right now I’m relieved and comforted by the fact that everyone suffers. Misery really does adore company.’

 When I’m home I tell my spouse I really  know he can’t know any more than he knows right now. I tell him how happy our daughter looked while walking in the parking lot, how he was holding her left hand and I was holding her right hand and she was sailing through the air jumping and singing and flying and in total joy.

 ‘I’m not going to mess that up,” I say, “I’m not going to do anything unless I’m certain we’ve tried as hard as possible. I am committed to trying and I know you can’t give assurances that I won’t get hurt for trying.”

 “She lights up when we’re together but that can’t be the only reason you stay.”

 ”Wow,” I say, “I can’t believe you said that. You with the abandonment issues.”

 “I’m trying to be mature,” he said, “But I don’t want you not to try. I think we still have something.”

 “I know,” I said, “For an addict I guess you don’t suck.”

 “Thanks,” he says.

 “I know I have a lot of work to do,” I say. “We have time to do work. Oh boy because it was getting boring without all that healing and work.”

 “I want it to work,” he says.

 “You’re really working at it,” I say, “I can see that.”

“I’m trying,” he says and I remember when my high school sweetheart, a drunk, started Alcoholics Anonymous and would say, “Trying’s lying,” which his sponsor would say to him when he was ‘trying’ to quit drinking. The thinking was, “you’re either doing it or you’re not. There’s no trying to quit drinking. There’s quitting or there’s not quitting.”

 Twenty one years ago I went to an Al-Anon meeting. Four years of being with a drunk, a drunk I loved, who I could not stop from drinking until I left him left me humbled, humiliated and exhausted. Twenty-One years later and I’m back in a recovery group, twelve steps no less, and the powerless of step one that I couldn’t embrace then I embrace now.

The past never goes away.

“It’s good to give it a full year,” the therapist said, “To see what happens. You might decide, at the end of a year, that loving him is killing you, which I’ve heard women say, but at least you will know you did all you could.”

__________________________________________

Now, many months later we are separating. I can’t even say it is the addiction alone I can’t handle. He has been sober since disclosure as far as I can tell which isn’t saying much since I never knew he was “drunk” before. But it’s not the addiction alone that has smudged out my hope. It is the all-consuming recovery which is necessary for him right now but allows no room for my reactions, feelings, experiences of betrayal. I took up residence in my lost trust and shattered heart. There was no bridge from me to him and I don’t even see us affording to be able to buy the wood to ever build one never mind actually traveling one from his heart to mine. But, I am more clear about wha tI need and that is to reclaim my confidence in my own intuition and to be independent of this relationship.

I have let go of completely “getting it” too. Reality, when it hit my head, was dizzying and disorienting and at times overwhelming. When it moved down to my heart it was like a toxic lead, heavy and solid. I know I can’t be the person I am meant to be with a lead in my heart an a cage around it. It’s not how I choose to live. Love is not enough. For me, trust always was a close second but has now edged out and is in the lead at the top of what I need. Trust in myself is the starting point.

The Co in Sex Addiction is Coupling

I reject the co-addict label. The only CO I own is being part of a couple. Well, o.k., I’ll suit up as a co-dependent too. It fits and working on issues of co-depedency isn’t goint to hurt. Eager and willing I am to look at where I failed to meet the needs of my partner. However, in light of sex addiction, I am not as open as I was in the years when I begged and pressed and asked, “What’s wrong?” or “Are you sure you are happy?” or even, “I have a problem with our sex life. Can we talk about this?”

These were doors and opportunities he not only kept shut, refusing to walk through or enter, but bolted up over with bold-faced lies. Not even once did he say he was unhappy. Not once did he tell me half the things he shares now, post disclosure, after being caught. He didn’t share them in previous couple’s therapy either. That information might have been helpful.  

Some, and my SA (sex addict) seems to be one of them, believe that the marriage is the biggest problem and the sexual addiction the flash point trigger which reveals it. As though we had both been bumbling along in post childhood survivor pain and woundedness and those forms and shapes are irrelevant. I was a square and he a circle. But really, at core, we’re the same and now, with this discovery, we can both wake up, walk towards health and happiness and sweep the past under the rug.

I don’t think so. I can’t say that rings true with my inner guidance. I don’t buy that whole package or view of things. Do I believe gender plays a role in sex addiction? Sure. I do. One therapist said to me, “You might have been a sex addict with your history if you were a guy.” I can’t know if that is true. I felt, and still do, that in many ways the SA (sexual addict) and I are two sides of the same coin. I shut down sexually and he acted out. We both had trauma. We both had issues with intimacy. Totally and 100% true.

However, that does not mean I give equal weight to the two sides. A square is a shape. A circle is a shape. They are both shapes. But they are not the same shape.

One way of behaving is against the law. One is not.  

One way of acting out denigrates and exploits other people. One does not.

One way of acting out used financial resources, in illicit and secret ways. One did not.

One way of acting out risked the health of the couple and our child’s parents. One did not. 

And one of us, this square, shared my problems with intimacy and sex BEFORE we were a couple, before we were living together, before we married. One of us knew what we were signing on for. One of us did not. One of us came forward to acknowledge our issues and one of us did not. In fairness I will say it took me a long time to own the impact my needy, clingy, dependent ways exhausted and burdened my partner. In fairness to me, he had a right to say, “Enough,” or, “This isn’t working,” and he never did. 

Regardless of questions of character and morality, the ways in which we carried our wounding, handled our pain, are different.

I can see the common humanity, the core source of trauma that is shared. I believe if he had not been injured as a child, abused, he would not have become an sex addict. I believe sexual addiction is a real disease and a real addiction.

But, here’s what I also believe. I believe  there is an element of choice in sex addiction. If there was no choice why would chips be given for sobriety? It’s a choice to get and stay sober. If it weren’t a choice when acting out why would one be rewarded and encouraged to stay clean? Why would sobriety be celebrated  as a personal victory? Why would once have personal sponsors for support? People learning to make better choices in life, getting support, guidance and encouragement? In or out of program, we all need that. Addiction has an added intensity and complications. But it doesn’t mean it’s a medical disease such as MS. If someone with MS doesn’t have a flare up they don’t get a sticker. They don’t get blamed or rewarded for symptoms they are not responsible for and if they have a less severe or more severe form, more complications, it’s a reflection of the disease not the person.

But sex addicts judge other sex addicts, notice who is using the program, who isn’t, who is making excuses, who is or  isn’t making calls.  They are not incapable of free will once sober nor were they when acting out.  They can make clearer judgements when the brain isn’t addicted. But they can still choose sobriety at any point. And also, for a long time, they chose addiction. They did not lie only because they felt shame. They lied because they knew, at least my SA has said, because they might lose things and people. He knew I would be devastated by his behavior.

The sex addict in my life has compared his condition to cancer. If he had cancer I wouldn’t be a co-Cancer. If he had Alzheimer’s I wouldn’t be a co-Alz. If he had Parkinson’s I woul be a co-Park. I would be a caretaker, a partner, a support person.

He has wished I could be more supportive. He has wished I could be more understanding. He has said my anger is “out of control” and I freak out when he sets a boundary. To which I say, “Do you think it’s really the boundary setting or the sleeping with prostitutes  which causes my ‘freak out”?” I would love to know what type of anger is appropriate when you find out the person you gave your heart to lied to your face and only came clean when he got caught with his pants down? I haven’t hit him. I haven’t kicked him out on the street. I have gone to therapy, 12 step meetings and read up on addiction to better understand his condition. I haven’t mediated with a punitive heart. I have attended to myself and our child while shattered. And I have not stopped loving him.

But I do not trust him and I will not share my bed or my home with someone who has risked my life. And, to top it off, acts as though, those lengthy escalating multi-year behaviors were just the disease and he really can’t handle my feelings on top of all of the shame. As though my anger is the cause of his shame and not his betrayal the cause of my anger.

It’s kind of shaming and isolating to be the spouse of someone who didn’t actually honor the vows on any level. It’s humiliating to realize I have been duped, fooled and was naive enough to be lied to so well and so often.

Going back to the cancer analogy. I get that emotionally I gave him second- hand smoke in certain ways because I was dependent on him in the first years of our relationship. I DID expect him to make me happy. I hoped and wanted to be rescued. It wasn’t reasonable or fair or mature or healthy. But, I didn’t stay there. I went to therapy. I read books. I joined groups and learned and grew and I learned how to be a rock and support person for him as well. I didn’t blow smoke in his face when he said, “That smoke makes it hard for me to breathe.” I did acknowledge and thank and appreciate his emotional generosity. And I reciprocated even in crisis. I knew I was emotionally draining but I did all the housework and bills and financial planning. I did the yard work too. I didn’t act entitled to his care and concern and tried to lighten his load wherever I could. And those arethe choices I made.

I don’t regret the time, energy and effort I spent on healing and trauma recovery. I still have the skills, relationships, insights and well being I worked for which helps me during this harrowing time. No one can take away the growth, the mothering, the friendships, the careers, the writing and the financial independence I have gained. The years are not all lost. For that I am grateful.

And I made mistakes too. But the co-addict model blames the person being lied to and manipulated. The addict and co-addict model fails to examine the ways in which the addict undermines the health, growth, honesty and integrity of the partner and the relationship. It does not take into account the traumatic nature of the betrayal, the life-threatening diseases the addict exposes the partner too, the secrecy in which the partner lives.

But the marriage I was in was not real. The person I thought I knew is a myth. I did trust my partner more than I trusted myself. In many ways I acted like a mother and he acted like a father and surprise that wasn’t good for the sex life. Every problem in not a result of his sex addiction, not even close. However, he exploited and manipulated my trust and my faith.

Sp, despite my years put in at the self-hep section of the bookstores and libraries I am not so willing now to look at how I failed and disappointed and let him down. I am looking at someone who betrayed my trust at every level and who thinks being sober is enough. I understand that for him, it’s consuming to recover. But I think it’s a little much to expect me to send, “Thank you for not screwing prostitutes anymore” cards or for me to do a “hip hip hurray” cheer because he’s not stealing our money to pay for phone sex.

I strive for compassion but I am saving it for myself and my child right now. I will continue to learn about addiction, to look at my part, to understand the long-term detrimental impact of child abuse because we will always be co-parents together and I have more healing to do as well… always. But my first priorites are making sure that when my SA moves out, our child and I are housed, fed and feel safe and loved.

The gift of this, and there is one, is in knowing it is me I need to trust. It was my mistake to put my trust into him above myself, to override my instincts because I trusted him more than I trusted myself. Although he sabotaged my growth, he is not responsible for me. I am. I am grateful I am choosing to know I can count on myself to take responsibility for my own well-being and happiness. I scared. I very very scared. But it’s very clear to me now how vulnerable I made myself and how he exploited my vulnerability.  That is the co-dependent role I take on. 

That and being the co in couple with an SA.